TSA: Pilots To Be Exempt From Some Airport Checks

The Transportation Security Administration has agreed to allow airline pilots to skip security scanning and pat-downs, pilot organizations said Friday. Pilots traveling in uniform on airline business will be allowed to pass security by presenting two photo IDs, one from their company and one from the government, to be checked against a secure flight crew database, officials at the pilot groups said.

“This looks good. It’s basically what we’ve been after for 10 years,” says Sam Mayer, a spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association at American Airlines, the union that raised objections to the new screening process about two weeks ago. “Pilots are not the threat here; we’re the target.”

TSA said in a news release Friday that pilots would begin seeing changes immediately in security screening, but did not specify what they would be.

The Coalition for Airline Pilot Associations, a trade organization for pilot unions, also described the new program.

It is an expansion of a program tested at three airports, the organizations said.

The decision comes amid recent outrage over invasive pat-downs and full body imaging machines used for screening at airports.